


Watch Out For The Tap-Dancing Zombies

by T Verano (t_verano)



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Community: sentinel_thurs, M/M, Sentinel Thursday, There are no actual zombies in this, Werewolf Lite, When fic embraces its inner Pollyanna
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:41:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26422069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t_verano/pseuds/T%20Verano
Summary: Blair Sandburg is hiding something.(Just not quite well enough, under the circumstances.)
Relationships: Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg
Comments: 21
Kudos: 54





	Watch Out For The Tap-Dancing Zombies

**Author's Note:**

> Sentinel Thursday challenge 123 'Epiphany'
> 
> This fic starts at the beginning of The Debt, then veers... ever so slightly... off course.
> 
> (There's also a tiny bit of revisionist history pre- _The Debt,_ for which I make no apologies. :-))

So it happens like this. How Jim finds out.

Not that he realizes it. Not at first. Not until... well. It bites him in the ass.

Which, by the way, isn't entirely a metaphor.

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷

The thing is, Jim hasn't known Sandburg for long. Doesn't know much about him except that he has a hell of a line in bullshit, a useful (and annoying) fixation on Jim's fucked-up senses, and thinks on his feet surprisingly well for a civilian. 

And also, it turns out, lives in a run-down warehouse in a neighborhood notorious for its gang-related callouts. Maybe Sandburg isn't as smart as Jim thought he was. Jim cases the area before he climbs out of the F-150, which had damn well better not get jacked while he's inside, and heads to the warehouse. Punches the intercom button of a for-shit security system and gets ushered in by Sandburg to a living area that looks like cross between a Goodwill thrift shop and a squat. 

If you throw a zoo into the mix, that is.

Jim sighs. What the hell's happened to his life.

As he hands over the borrowed video camera, forcing himself to hope for the best in spite of Sandburg's, well, _Sandburgness,_ Jim's nose wrinkles. He sniffs at Larry's cage. No, that's not it. What he's smelling is definitely animal, though. Reminds him of... 

Of... Oh. "You have a dog?" he asks, interrupting whatever Sandburg's saying about whatever the crap it is he's currently talking about. 

Sandburg stops mid-syllable, his mouth hanging open unattractively. "What?" he says, voice a little high. Like a squeak, almost. Or maybe a yip. Then he chuckles. "No, man. It's just me and Larry and the rats. Which are as _big_ as dogs, you should _see_ some of those suckers --"

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷

"I'm not a big fan of animals in cages, Chief," Jim protests. Pointlessly, he's pretty sure, since Larry's got an unexpectedly effective line in abjectly pleading expressions, and Sandburg isn't all that far behind him. 

Jim can't entirely blame either of them. The explosion and its aftermath did a number on Sandburg's so-called living space, after all. Sandburg's actually putting up a pretty good show of rolling with the punches. 

Along with a pretty good show of idiocy, considering that he was voluntarily living in a derelict warehouse that was also hosting a meth lab. Jim sighs.

"Come _on,_ Jim," Sandburg is saying now. Wheedling. "One week. I'll come over every day and take care of him; all you have to do is let him sleep there in his cage at night. He won't bother you, I swear. I won't, either -- he and I will just watch a little TV when I'm there, and I'll finish up my project and get him out of your hair. You'll barely even notice he's there, I promise. Just for a week, and you won't even --"

Jim cuts off the flood of words, pinching the bridge of his nose and sighing again as he wonders just how much interrupting -- and capitulating -- he's going to end up doing while he's getting a handle on his goddamned senses. "Look," he tells Sandburg, "I've got a spare room. Instead of trying to bunk in your office, you come along with the monkey and keep him quiet at night while you figure out some place to stay longer term, and we've got a deal. A _one week_ deal."

Turns out Jim's two for two tonight in derailing Sandburg's usually unstoppable eloquence. This time he doesn't get a squeak -- or a yip -- but he does get an automatic "Barbary ape, Jim" and a not automatic at all, drawn-out "Uh." And a long pause, and a searching glance at the sky, like Sandburg expects to find the rest of his sentence up there somewhere. 

Whatever he finds, if anything, has him chewing his lip with his eyes closed. He mutters something to himself that sounds, somewhat confusingly, like, "It'll be fine, just stay awake, you can handle that," then opens his eyes and looks up at Jim. Says out loud, shooting Jim a grin, "That's great, Jim. I mean it; that's really great."

The grin looks a little forced, for some reason, and Jim narrows his gaze. Sandburg keeps talking. Of course he keeps talking. "Larry's very adaptable; he'll settle in fine," he says. "I really appreciate this, Jim." Big, wide, sincere eyes.

Big, wide, sincere, _nervous_ -looking eyes. "Uh, Jim," he says and clears his throat. Then he goes on, talking so fast the words practically trip over themselves. "Tomorrow night, though, I can't stay. I have to...I've got plans. But Larry will be used to the loft by then and you guys will be fine without me, and I can be there tonight and the rest of the week, no problem." 

Jim frowns. Sandburg has 'plans.' The guy who's already shown himself to have the libido of a randy teenager has _plans._ Which means Jim'll get saddled with monkey-sitting so Sandburg can go scratch an itch. "Hot date tomorrow night, Chief?" he says, possibly a little sourly.

Sandburg glances up at the sky, chews his lip again. "Something like that, yeah," he says. 

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷

Capitulating turns out, not unexpectedly, to have been a mistake. 

As far as house guests go, Larry's okay, for a monkey. So far, anyway. At least he's being quiet. Sandburg, however, is a pain in the ass. 

Jim tries to keep a lid on his irritation while he lies in bed listening to the pacing going on downstairs in the spare room. The guy's had a tough evening; it's not suprising he's a little stressed out. Adrenaline's got to go somewhere. 

After the second hour of lying on his back and staring up at the skylight while he listens to the pacing, though, Jim's sympathy wilts a little. He yells, politely enough, "Go the fuck to _bed,_ Sandburg," and gets an apology called out to him, a creak of the futon frame and a blessed, blissful absence of the pacing. And -- eventually -- the faint sound of slow, steady breathing when Sandburg finally falls asleep.

Jim's just starting to drift off to sleep himself when the whimpering starts.

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷

Sandburg whimpers in his sleep. Whines.

 _Yips._ Jesus Christ. He sounds like a goddamn dog. No wonder the guy lives alone in a warehouse.

Well, _lived_ alone. In a warehouse. 

Jim eyes the rectangle of moonlit sky visible through the skylight with irritation. Aspirin. He needs some aspirin.

Half a glass of water and two Tylenol later, he pauses outside the spare room. He can hear Larry every now and then, making some kind of low-key, sleepy monkey sound. He can hear Sandburg all the goddamn _time_ now, with his whimpers and whines and yips.

He sticks his head around the curtain hanging across the door, opens his mouth to tell Lassie to put a sock in it, and --

And just stands there, in silence. Getting an eyeful.

So Sandburg sleeps in the nude, does he? ( _Blair_ sleeps in the nude, Jim's mind helpfully revises, for some reason.)

Not that Jim's getting a complete, nuts-and-bolts eyeful, since a sheet is mostly blocking what one might call the key hardware. There's plenty of bare hip and thigh on view to nail down the 'nude' conviction, though. Plenty of skin.

Plenty of hair. Furry guy. Very furry guy. He's seen Sandburg's forearms before and they hadn't looked _that_ hairy. Maybe it's a trick of the moonlight.

There's a half-smile on Sandburg's sleeping face (which is sporting one hell of a five-o-clock shadow, whether it's a trick of the moonlight or not), and he's added quiet little panted breaths between the whimpers and whines and yips. His hands are twitching. He looks like a goddamn dog dreaming about squirrels and rabbits and the poodle next door. 

A dog with a pretty impressive erection tenting the sheet draped across his groin. What exactly a yipping Sandburg (a yipping _Blair_ ) might be dreaming about with so much hound-dog excitement -- squirrels, rabbits, poodles? -- Jim doesn't want to know.

He goes back upstairs. Lies on his back on his bed and stares up at the skylight, at the slightly misshapen circle of the nearly full moon.

And sighs. What the hell is happening to his life?

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷

Sandburg's in the kitchen when Jim drags himself downstairs in the morning, fresh from a whole forty-five minutes' worth of sleep.

"Good morning!" Sandburg says, far too cheerfully for someone who yipped and whimpered and panted until the crack of dawn. He offers Jim a wide smile.

Jim grunts. Sandburg's fidgeting like he's just downed an entire pot of coffee, like he's got energy to burn -- like he didn't spend half the night chasing dreamland poodles -- and Jim glares at him. "Sleep well?" Jim asks. Bitterly. 

Blair seems to freeze for a moment. But then he's chuckling, an apologetic little chuckle, accompanied by an apologetic little gesture. "Sorry about the pacing, Jim," he says. He clears his throat. Another chuckle, this one sounding almost nervous. "I hope I didn't keep you up? You know, snoring. Or," and now he _looks_ nervous, "um, anything."

Poodles, for chrissake. "Not snoring," Jim says shortly. "But you do have an interesting line in 'um, _anything,_ ' Chief. You almost sounded like --"

"Whoa, look at the time, gotta go, gonna be late for class," Blair says, and he's already halfway out the door. "I'll be back this afternoon and feed Larry before I head out for the night. If you need me at the station --"

"No, not today," Jim says, somewhat absently, as the door closes behind Blair. The curtain across the spare room door isn't pulled all the way across, and there's something lying on the floor beside the futon, something that doesn't belong there, some sort of...

...hair. Animal hair. Scattered on the rug. 

Jim looks accusingly at Larry in his crate over by the outside window. 

Larry stares back at Jim with no sign of remorse. Then again, he's over there and the hair's over here by the futon. And Larry's coat is sort of yellowish; the shed stuff is darker. Browner.

Or grayer. Depending on how the light strikes it.

Jim huffs. So it's too short and coarse to be Sandburg's hair and the wrong color to be Larry's hair, so what. Wherever it came from, it's Sandburg's fault. Obviously. 

As is the whiff of eau d'Lassie in the spare-room air, now that Jim's stopped focusing so much on the shed hair. If Sandburg's been smuggling a dog into and out of Jim's loft somehow (in his ubiquitous backpack? some kind of miniature, over-the-shoulder schnauzer?), Jim's going to --

...well, apparently, vacuum. Since he's already hauling the Hoover out of its closet, on auto-pilot. 

He sighs and plugs the cord into the outlet. What the hell. An actual -- if unlikely -- dog couldn't be any more annoying than Sandburg's midnight dog impersonations.

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷

It's beginning to get dark by the time Jim swings the F-150 onto Prospect. What a day. Working in a department like Major Crime instead of Patrol generally provides some insulation against the crazies that tend to come out whenever the moon's full, but Cascade seems to be overflowing with lunatics this month, and there've been times today that Jim felt like he'd wandered into a carnival funhouse. 

He's giving in to a yawn when his eye is caught by movement down the block, in front of the loft. Sandburg. Heading towards his car at a jog, with his hair flopping around and that ever-present backpack bouncing against his back.

Can't be much fun for the secret schnauzer, if there is one.

Which there isn't, of course. In spite of the dog hair in the spare room, in spite of the _smell_ of --

 _Dog._ The truck windows are rolled up, but Jim can smell dog now anyway, carried on the breeze that's flowing down the apparently dog-free sidewalk. Either one hell of a ripe dog is involved here -- somehow -- or the goddamned senses are tripping him up again.

Sandburg's so-called 'classic' coughs its way to life and peels out from the curb. Makes an effort at peeling out, anyway; it needs a tune up if Sandburg really wants to get somewhere in a hurry. 

Somewhere like his hot date tonight. With or without a covert dog.

Impulse has Jim veering away from the curb where he was about to park and following the Corvair instead. Curiosity, maybe. Exasperation. Annoyance, although whether that's with Sandburg or with the goddamned senses remains to be seen. For a moment he considers using the pickup's light and siren to pull Sandburg over and get all this crap sorted out, but decides to wait a little, see where Romeo's headed. Maybe it'll be somewhere a little more private than a cop-stop on a busy street would be, in case Sandburg needs to pull some mumbo jumbo out of his pocket to fix Jim's sense of smell.

Where Romeo's headed turns out to be Rainier. It figures. Jim pulls into the Bradley Street entrance to campus, following the Corvair's taillights in the gathering dusk. For a few minutes he thinks they're heading to Hargrove Hall, but instead they end up all the way over near the Jungle. Or as close as you can park to it, anyway; the small slice of wilderness preserved in the campus's quietest corner doesn't offer much in the way of vehicular accommodation. 

It doesn't offer much in the way of an attraction for a romantic evening out, either. The Jungle is overgrown enough to merit its nickname, which makes for tricky hiking even in daytime. Nobody's ever called anything about it scenic, as far as Jim knows. Weird place for a date.

Whoever it is must be meeting Sandburg here, although there's no sign of anybody yet. Sandburg gets out of his car, grabs his backpack, and turns to slam the door closed. Which is when he does a double-take at the F-150 easing up behind the Corvair's tailpipe. 

Christ. Not very observant for an official PD 'observer.'

He just stands there, frozen, as Jim opens the pickup's door. "I think we need to work on your situational awareness, Chief," Jim says blandly, "I've been behind you since you left the loft." He squints at the shadowy belt of trees that marks the edge of the Jungle. "What the hell are you doing _here,_ any--"

"No time," Sandburg blurts, unfreezing in a hurry with a panicked glance at the sky. "I gotta -- go, I gotta... Jim, _go_ \-- I'll see you in the --" A judder runs through his body, and suddenly he's haring across the grass towards the dark tangle of the Jungle like the hounds of hell are after him, backpack in his hand, the word "morning..." trailing back over his shoulder pointlessly, like there's an actual chance Jim would just shrug off his dramatic exit and placidly head home instead of taking out after him. 

It's going to be one of those nights that get brighter as night actually falls. The moon hasn't quite risen yet, but a wash of light is preceding it, and navigating the Jungle's trees and vines isn't as hard as it might have been. Neither is finding Sandburg. Jim doesn't even need to use the goddamned senses.

There. Twenty yards in, behind a big tree, breathing hard. Taking his clothes off.

Taking his clothes off? Jim crashes to a halt.

All. His. Clothes.

Off. Sandburg is standing there with his chest heaving, way too _au naturel,_ surrounded by a drift of discarded clothing. Another judder runs through his body.

Drugs. Has to be.

Shit.

Strangely, though, he looks even hairier than last night. Furrier. And _that_ can't be drugs.

Also strangely -- or not, what the fuck does Jim know? -- if Blair (Sandburg, goddammit) was wearing a sheet right now, it would be even more impressively tented than last night's sheet was. Not that Jim's looking.

Because Jesus Christ. What the --

"Fuck," Blair says, wincing. Then he --

He. 

He gets. Furrier. 

Clawier.

Toothier. 

A hell of a lot less bipedal.

And now there's a tail, and this can't be happening. 

"This can't be happening," Jim says.

The wolf ducks its head and looks apologetic.

Apologetic? It's _a wolf._

A wolf. And five seconds ago it was Sandburg, standing right there. Goddamned senses.

The wolf sits down. Jim clears his throat. Says, calmly, "I think I'm having some kind of weird zone out here, Sandburg."

The wolf shakes its head. 

"Let me rephrase that," Jim says, still perfectly calm. "I _hope_ I'm having some kind of weird zone out."

The wolf shakes its head again and gets up and trots over to Jim and shoves its nose against his hand, pushing it to the side. Jim looks down, and oh. Yeah. Gun. Wouldn't want to shoot the friendly wolf, would he. The wolf that Sandburg _turned into._

Why the fuck couldn't it just have been drugs?

Jim slides his back down the tree trunk just behind him and sits his ass down onto the lumpy ground. Shakes his head. There's an apex predator standing two feet away from him, its big wolfy teeth a very short lunge away from his face, and he's not even got his gun on it. 

The wolf wags its tail. Grins winningly.

The grin looks depressingly familiar. Jim sighs, mourning his lost sanity. "Sandburg," he says, flatly, "you're a wolf."

The wolf's tail wags harder, and it yips and sits down, then paws Jim's knee.

Paws his knee once, then leans back and stares at Jim pointedly, like a teacher ready to grade his student on a test. Jim shakes his head again and rubs the bridge of his nose. "Don't tell me," he says, "one means yes, two means no? Jesus Christ. I need to check myself into Conover."

The wolf narrows its eyes. It paws his knee once, waits a couple of moments, then paws his knee again, twice. Chidingly, somehow. 

It's official: Jim has signed up with the full-moon lunatic corps, no matter what the wolf's opinion on the matter is. Just to be clear about that last part, Jim says, "I'm guessing you disagree about my need for a straitjacket, huh?"

The wolf throws its head back and lets out a howl, and Jim snorts. "You're almost making me feel normal, Chief," he says, resigning himself to the situation -- what-the-fuck-ever it actually is -- because what the fuck else can he do at this point. "I may be stuck with these crazy goddamned senses, but at least I don't turn into an overgrown dog when the moon's full."

Were-Blair glares at him, and Jim smirks. "So what now, Lassie?" he says.

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷

'What now' involves some (un)surprisingly effective non-verbal communication from the neo-hippy witchdoctor punk werewolf front, interspersed with such verbal contributions from Jim as "So I guess your hot date tonight is with an actual dog, then, Chief?" interspersed with Jim getting nipped on the ass by pointy wolf teeth. Pointedly.

The owner of those pointy teeth is currently racing around deeper in the woods, acting like a kid who's been cooped up in class all day finally set free to play. Jim can hear him off in the distance, rustling through the underbrush, making happy little yipping sounds. It doesn't sound like he's chasing anything, except possibly his own tail. Makes sense; Jim can't quite picture Sandburg pouncing on a rabbit and scarfing it down as a midnight snack. He's much more likely to round up a dozen squirrels and give them some song and dance about how meditating would improve their focus when they're trying to cross streets. 

(Jim can see the Disney movie trailer now, little cartoon birds fluttering around Sandburg the Kinder, Gentler, Cuter Werewolf and dropping flower petals on him. What's next, for Chrissake? Tap-dancing zombies?)

Jim eyes the discarded clothing and scratches his chin, frowning. He gathers Sandburg will be back to reclaim it all at dawn's early light, in upright, tail-free, speech-enabled, and considerably less hairy form. _In considerably less hairy,_ naked _form, let's not forget that,_ the less helpful part of Jim's mind mutters. _Naked Blair. Let's definitely not forget_ that.

Jim sighs. 

Naked Blair. Who has a lot of explaining to do after he puts his clothes back on. 

_After?_ The less helpful part of Jim's brain sounds like it's whining. _Why not_ before?

The less helpful part of Jim's brain is...not helpful. 

Although it might explain why Jim settles in, his back against a tree trunk and his butt on the ground, to wait for Blair's eventual (and unclothed) return, instead of going back to the loft and making use of his comfortable bed. It's not like he needs to worry about Wolf-Blair, after all; Animal Control doesn't work at night. Even if they did, Jim's money would be on Sandburg outfoxing them. 

Outwolfing them. Jim shakes his head and closes his eyes. Listens to Wolf-Blair scampering around somewhere off to the north, probably playing Ring Around The Rosie with a bunch of raccoons. 

Listens, and tries to put a lid on the less helpful part of his brain.

...Keeps trying.

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷

"Where are my clothes, Jim?"

Jim jerks out of his doze. Blair's right there in front of him, standing two feet away. Standing _on_ two feet. No hairier than he usually is, looking impressively unselfconscious for a naked guy who had a bushy tail and no opposable thumbs not that long ago.

He also looks impatient. "My clothes? C'mon, man; I'm freezing," he says. He does look chilly; shivering, arms crossed over his chest. Goosebumps. Must be quite a contrast, going from all that warm wolf fur to nothing but bare human skin, defenceless against the cool air of dawn.

Jim leans back more firmly against Blair's backpack, which he's been using as a bolster between the tree trunk and his spine, and which, incidentally, now contains Blair's clothes, and raises an eyebrow. "I think you owe me an explanation first," he says.

"'First,'" Blair echoes, with a note of disbelief in his voice. " _'First?'_ He narrows his eyes. "Which is either petty revenge for all this," he gestures at the surrounding forest, presumably referring to his stint moonlighting as a wolf, "and you're getting off on me freezing my nuts off, or else you're getting off on looking at all _this,_ " he gestures at himself, in all his naked glory. 

Well, if he's going to put it that way. 

So Jim shrugs. Why not? Elvis has already left the building, as far as business as usual goes, and trying to convince himself he's not interested is getting old. And there's no denying how often Blair singles him out for hands-on, up close and personal attention that doesn't always relate to the goddamned senses.

It's worth a shot, anyway. So he says, "Why not both," and lets his gaze take a leisurely road trip all the way down Blair's body, pausing occasionally to appreciate a particularly scenic view, before ending up back at Blair's face. 

Looks like it's not just Elvis who's left the building; Blair's sublime unselfconsciousness of a minute ago is nowhere in sight. He looks awkward. Flustered, even. 

But interested. Jim doesn't need souped-up senses -- or even full daylight -- to see Blair's interest. His rising level of interest. 

Jim smirks.

Blair sucks in a deep breath like he's in sudden need of oxygen, like he'd forgotten to do any breathing at all while Jim's eyes were working him over. "What do you mean, 'both?'" he says now, voice a little on the hoarse side, "... _Both?_ Seriously? You're screwing with me, right?"

Then he apparently realizes how what he just said actually relates to the current context, and he blushes. 

Jim grins. Wickedly, he suspects. "Tell you what, Chief," he says. "You answer my questions, and I'll answer yours."

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷

Jim takes another sip of his coffee and leans back against the couch cushions, listens to the shower shut off. Waits.

For answers. From a not-naked Blair. He sighs.

At least he'd heard campus security approaching in time for Blair to get his clothes back on and to come up with a plausible enough explanation of why their vehicles were parked where no vehicles were supposed to be parked at that hour. Still. Jim can hear Blair getting dressed (for the second time this morning), and the less helpful part of Jim's brain is feeling a little petulant. 

Less helpful, less reasonable, less civilized... hornier. Jim sighs again. What the hell has happened to him, anyway, that he's more concerned about whether he'll have sex with Blair at some point in the foreseeable future than he is about the fact that his temporary roommate _is a werewolf?_

He hears the bathroom door open, hears footsteps come down the hall and detour into the kitchen. Hears coffee being poured into a mug, followed by the sound of a couple of deep breaths.

More footsteps. Then Blair's sitting down on the loveseat, staring into the cup he's cradling in both hands. "Right," he says, blowing out another deep breath and looking over at Jim. "Okay... So. It's not what you're probably thinking. Not exactly, anyway."

Sure, it isn't. Jim snorts. "What I'm thinking is you turned into a wolf, Sandburg. You're a werewolf. Seems pretty straightforward to me. Fucking impossible, but straightforward."

Blair winces. "Not impossible. Obviously. And not quite that straightforward."

"Why am I not surprised," Jim mutters, and Blair rolls his eyes.

"The thing is, there hasn't been any serious scientific research into the subject to date --" Blair says, ignoring Jim's second pointed snort of the conversation, "-- but persistent folk traditions generally define a werewolf as someone who involuntarily shifts into a hybrid human/wolf form when there's a full moon, with the shift being accompanied by the loss of a sense of self and an overriding compulsion towards violence." He wrinkles his forehead. "Think Lon Chaney, Jr. in _The Wolf Man._ "

"Do I have to?" Jim says, pinching the bridge of his nose. Blair's a lot easier on the eyes than Lon Chaney, with or without fur.

"Hopefully with better special effects," Blair says with a shrug and a quick flash of a grin.

It's typical Sandburg: that grin, that shrug. The flying gestures playing fast and loose with his loaded-for-bear coffee cup. The light in his eyes --

...And dammit, maybe it's not just sex Jim's interested in, with Blair. Maybe he wants _more_ than sex. With Blair.

More than sex. 

With Blair.

Goddammit. He wants more than just sex, with Blair.

What the hell has _happened_ to his life?

Blair's still talking -- naturally -- and Jim tunes back in to the flow of words, for distraction's sake. Goddamned epiphanies.

"...even in those traditions where the were form is physically less of a hybrid and more purely lupine, one of the defining characteristics tends to be the loss of a sense of self, generally accompanied by an overriding bloodlust --" 

So much for distraction. Jim can't help cutting in, with a smirk, "Well, you did bite me, Chief."

"Because you have less sensitivity than a potato," Blair retorts. "I wouldn't exactly call that _blood-_ lust." 

Then he blushes, and Jim feels his smirk widen. He lets his raised eyebrow make the obvious comment about Blair's not-blood _lust_ in silence. 

Still... lust. Not the ideal topic for distracting himself from thinking about sex. 

Or from thinking about wanting more than just sex, with Blair.

Jesus Christ. Back to werewolves; it seems safer. Saner. "The full moon made you change," Jim points out (and maybe saner isn't exactly the right word, after all). "It didn't look to me like you had any choice in the matter, which seems pretty much like a werewolf deal to me."

Blair grimaces. "Yeah, which is why it's complicated," he says. "Except for that, I'm more of a shape shifter than a werewolf. Shape shifter or skin walker, although I can't shift into anything except the wolf, and most shape shifters and skin walkers can choose more freely what they shift into."

 _Skin walker._ Jim frowns. Incacha had talked about skin walkers a couple of times. About shamans who were skin walkers, who stayed human inside, no matter what animal body they were borrowing. Skin walking was a real thing to Incacha. 

And not just to him, apparently. Skin walkers and werewolves; Jim's got honest-to-fuck evidence of both of them now. He rubs the back of his neck. "You're not telling me you're a shaman, Sandburg," he says. He can't quite turn it into a question. Incacha's the only shaman Jim's ever met, and Blair's nothing like Incacha. Blair's all about science, experiments, research. He might _study_ Incacha, study a people like the Quechua, but Jim can't imagine --

"A shaman?" Blair says. "That's way beyond my level, man." He sounds wistful, and Jim shoots him a sharp glance. 

He adds, looking away from Jim, like he's looking back into the past, "I spent some time working with one when I was fifteen, though, while I was living with his tribe for a couple of months. That's when this," he gestures at himself, "the shifting thing, started. _How_ it started. It was kind of an... accident, which is why I'm halfway between skin walker and were."

"The tribe's shaman did this?" Jim wants to be skeptical -- hell, he wants to be sarcastic -- about all of this, but there isn't really any room for that anymore. 

Wait. "Fifteen? Your family was living with a native tribe when you were fifteen? They're in the anthropology business, too?"

"It was just me, and no. Long story," Blair says, waving the 'long story' off with a gesture. "But before I found the tribe I got, um, attacked by a were. A werewolf. What Laughing Crow -- the tribe's shaman -- called a werewolf, anyway: an outcast shaman who'd turned to the Dark Side of the Force," Blair hooks his fingers in air quotes, "and eventually devolved into..." An expression of pain moves across his face. "...Well. Think Lon Chaney, again."

Christ. Jim opens his mouth, but Blair's plowing forward. "There were some crappy aftereffects from the attack, and I guess you could say that my ending up like this is basically damage control. Laughing Crow couldn't entirely reverse the process, but he helped me learn how to shift into a true wolf form and how to retain my sense of self when I shift. He turned what would have been a horrific curse into a pretty amazing gift." Blair focuses more intently on Jim. "You learned about skin walkers in Peru?"

Aside from a dismissive nod, Jim ignores the question. He's still...processing, in Sandburg-speak. "You 'found' the tribe, when you were fifteen. Just you. No family?" he says. 

"Naomi -- my mom -- was spending the summer at a retreat in the area," Blair says. He shrugs. Smiles. "My expedition ended up being more of an adventure than I intended when I started out, but I got to experience some incredible things that I wouldn't ever have been initiated into otherwise. And it made me absolutely sure I wanted to study anthropology, so it worked out great in the long run."

"Great," Jim echoes dryly, and Blair's smile widens. 

"Yeah, 'great,' Jim. Seriously," he says. "There's some down sides, sure, and I have to be careful, but it's totally worth it." He gaves Jim the kind of look that generally means there's sentinel crap just ahead, and Jim winces.

"For one thing," Blair goes on, "I have enhanced hearing and low-light vision and a way better sense of smell as a wolf. Nothing like even just the extent of your abilities that we've seen so far, but it's enough to make me wish like hell I could experience your senses, just once."

Goddamned senses. Jim sighs. 

He considers the situation for a moment. Pinches the bridge of his nose; says, possibly a little sharply, "Maybe I should write a dissertation about _you,_ Chief. Pretty sure you turning into an honest-to-fuck wolf when the moon is full trumps my jacked-up senses to hell and gone."

That gets Blair practically vibrating off the couch with intensity. "It's not the same, Jim! For one thing, what you have is a genetic gift, not the result of shamanic tradition and spiritual practice. And the more we learn about managing your senses and using them more fully, the more we might be able to help other people with similar genetic gifts or with a range of sensory issues. There isn't any parallel with my shifting."

"Or it could be you just have more respect for your own privacy than mine," Jim says, and this time there's a definite edge to his voice, even though the shit show that'd happen if his goddamned senses hit the news wouldn't hold a candle to what would happen if Were-Blair got thrown to the media jackals.

Blair closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath. When he opens his eyes again, he looks rueful. "Jim, I know I spouted some crap about looking for fame and fortune when we started this, but that was just day-dreaming, man. What you are... _who_ you are is amazing, and I want the world to see that." He sighs. "And I know it wouldn't be fair to you. I knew it when I said that shit. Which is exactly what it was: bullshit. There _isn't_ even a Nobel Prize in anthropology, anyway." A ghost of a Sandburg grin. 

The grin fades; now he's all earnestness, like he's swearing a solemn oath, as he goes on, "Everything we're doing -- if I can't absolutely protect your privacy, I can't publish; I get that. I'm not saying I won't find a way to make it work -- because I'm gonna try like hell -- but I'll come up with another subject for my thesis if I have to. Or even stay ABD; it's not the worst thing that could happen."

Jim rubs his jaw, lets out a breath. Opens his mouth to speak --

\-- and Blair's already continuing, at speed. "I couldn't tell you, Jim. Laughing Crow saved my life; I swore I would never tell a living soul about the shifting." He grimaces. "Even telling you this much, now, feels like a betrayal of my vow. Of his trust, of the tribe's trust." He offers Jim a lopsided smile. "For what it's worth, I'm glad you know."

...The hell of it is, so is Jim. 

For one thing, he's not the only special snowflake in the room anymore; if he's a freak, Blair's a bigger one. He's not as alone as he thought he was.

For another thing, there's more balance now. He's been forced to put _his_ goddamned secret -- his goddamned life -- in Blair's hands; now secrets and the need to trust go both ways.

Jim's not as alone as he thought he was.

"So, uh, now what?" Blair says.

Jim eyes him. His right leg is jogging up and down like he's barely keeping himself from jumping up from the loveseat and pacing circles around the room, but his hands for once are still. His gaze is locked on Jim. 

He swallows, visibly, and Jim's eyes drop to his neck. Follow the bob of his Adam's apple. Linger.

'Now what?' -- Jim did promise to answer Blair's questions, didn't he? An epiphany or two ago. And Blair's answered more questions than Jim expected, questions Jim's been trying to pretend he didn't even have.

Which brings up another question. Jim's already in deeper than he ever intended to be; maybe Blair is, too. 

Maybe it's time to find out.

Blair swallows again. This time Jim lets his gaze travel upward from Blair's throat to the sharp line of his jaw, pause on his mouth -- Christ, that mouth -- and rise to meet Blair's baby blues. 

They're a little darker than usual: dilated pupils. Good.

He smells good, too. Coffee and toothpaste and Jim's soap. Shampoo. No trace of dog (thank fuck), but a growing tease of musk.

Good. 

_'So now what?'_

Jim shrugs. Keeps his smile inside -- he's not above doing a little teasing himself -- and purses his lips, cocks an eyebrow. 

Says, "You wanna have sex?" and watches Blair flush.

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷

Larry doesn't want them to have sex.

Larry turns into thirty pounds of screechingly outraged simian propriety whenever things start to get interesting, even when he's in his crate in the spare room and Jim and Blair are upstairs.

Larry goes back to the lab.

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷

Jim can't say he has any complaints, the night after Larry leaves them. It was good sex. They get a little more practice in, it's going to be _very_ good sex. So it pisses him off that instead of falling asleep in post-orgasmic relaxation he's lying here at midnight, wide awake; staring up with disfavor at the rain falling on the skylight. 

Unfortunately, the disfavor's got nothing to do with the rain he's looking at or even the sleep he's not getting. Goddammit. He says, eventually, "I'm not helping your career any here, am I, Chief?"

He doesn't really expect an answer but he gets one anyway, if you can call an interrogative-sounding mumble against his shoulder an answer.

Jim frowns. Elaborates, in case Sleeping Beauty is awake enough to actually listen. "You cut your project with Larry short. And you're having sex with your dissertation subject, which I'm assuming isn't SOP." 

A hand flaps uncoordinatedly against his chest. Flops. Stays there, like moving even that much wore it completely the fuck out. Well, it's nice that one of them's still feeling the afterglow. Too bad it's not him. 

The mop of hair sharing part of his pillow stirs. Sighs, and says, around a yawn, "Academia has its share of dirty laundry, Jim," as the hand on Jim's chest stops playing dead and pats his pec. "But 's okay. I'm changing my diss. Applying aspects of Burton's observations to current Western law enforcement practices; it'll give me the opportunity to address some Sentinel issues without singling you out, and it'll make my committee happy." Blair's hand makes a seesaw motion, brushing Jim's nipple. "Simon, I'm not so sure about."

Which is a diverting thought, but not as much of an answer as Jim needs. "So where does that leave us?" he says. His voice sounds hollow to his ears. "Our deal? You helping me out, if you don't need to slice and dice me in order to end up as Dr. Sandburg."

Blair's hand stills, then withdraws from Jim's chest. Probably not a good sign. Probably not a good sign, either, that it returns a moment later, in a backhanded smack that makes up for its lack of force with a fair amount of attitude. "In case you weren't listening, I do still intend to get my thesis out of working with you, just in a different way. But even without that, you need me. And I can help. I _want_ to help. Trust me, okay?"

The thing is, Jim does. He's been trusting Blair for a while now, after all, and not just because he hasn't had any choice. But you don't survive long in this world if you start taking things for granted. "Just...clearing the air," he says after a few beats of silence. 

Another few beats before he adds, and how the hell he isn't going to regret this later he has no idea, "You want to keep staying here, the offer's open. Could be handy."

Blair snorts a laugh that tickles Jim's shoulder. His hand pets Jim's chest like Jim's some kind of overgrown cat. 

It feels, unfortunately, like a yes. Or maybe fortunately; how the fuck should Jim know?

He doesn't. Know.

_(More than just sex, with Blair.)_

But it looks like he's willing to find out.

÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷ EPILOGUE ÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷

"I don't get paid enough for this shit," Simon says. 

Blair trots across their living room to the couch and rests his head on Simon's knee. He wags his tail hopefully and gives Simon the "I'm just an adorable puppy" eyes.

Simon rubs the bridge of his nose underneath his glasses and scowls.

Jim knows the feeling. He looks at the coffee he's just poured for himself and Simon. Sighs. Gets the Jack Daniels out from the cabinet under the counter and tops off their mugs. Life would be a lot simpler if Blair hadn't been forced to go wolf in front of Simon yesterday to save all three of their kidnapped asses from Cascade's drug cartel of the week.

Could be worse, though. There's nobody Jim trusts more to keep crazy secrets. And Simon's not just their boss; he's a friend. A reluctant friend, maybe, where Blair is concerned, but still a friend, no matter how hard he works to hide it.

Like now. "Goddammit, Sandburg," Simon says, as Jim brings the coffee over from the kitchen, "I am not petting you. Have some dignity, for Pete's sake."

Blair lifts his head from Simon's knee with a huff and sits down beside Simon's feet. He doesn't look up at Simon. Twenty seconds in he leans slightly to the side, until he's just brushing against Simon's leg. By accident, for anyone gullible enough to fall for the plausible deniability he's attempting to project. 

Another twenty seconds and the lean gets a little more pronounced. Jim suppresses a snort: Simon doesn't stand a chance.

Jim knows that feeling, too. Can't even say he minds.

Simon takes a sip of coffee and slouches a little farther down against the couch. The hand that's not holding his coffee cup has migrated to his knee, and Blair carefully eases his head closer. "So I'm guessing I don't send you two on a stakeout when there's a full moon," Simon grumbles, glaring down at his coffee.

Jim eyes him. Flicks his gaze down to Simon's knee and back up. Scratches the side of his jaw and considers. "Better make that a couple nights before, too," he says. "Sandburg has to keep his focus on not shifting during those nights or he ends up shifting part way." He smirks. "Gets a little furry."

It takes a moment for Jim's words to achieve their full effect, but the expression Simon ends up wearing is a thing of beauty. "TMI, Ellison," he growls, and Blair lets out an amused-sounding yip.

Jim's smirk deepens at the look of horror that spreads across Simon's face as he slowly lowers his gaze towards his hand. Which is now on top of Blair's head. Petting him.

Simon jerks his hand away like it's been scalded.

Blair's already halfway across the living room -- grinning -- before Simon can even get his yell out, and Jim makes a half-hearted attempt to hide his own grin as he listens to Simon splutter. 

"Welcome to my world, Simon," he says, around his smothered grin.

It's a pretty _good_ world, Jim has to admit. Fucking weird, sure. But pretty damn good.

**Author's Note:**

> (Please feel free to insert a joke about vampires that sparkle. I tried, I really tried to add it to the tap-dancing zombies, but. I just couldn't. Apparently I'm not _entirely_ shameless. :-))


End file.
